


February Words #8: Revolution

by StaringAtTheTwinSuns



Series: February Words (2018) [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Birthday, Fluff, Multi, Non-Sequel-Trilogy Compliant, OT3, Old Age, Pre-OT3, Yavin 4, happy future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 12:06:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StaringAtTheTwinSuns/pseuds/StaringAtTheTwinSuns
Summary: On the eve on his sixtieth birthday, Han Solo isn't exactly feeling upbeat about getting older. Sure, he knows that age is just a number, but he's starting to feel like he and Luke and Leia are just being faded out, and that something strange and new is sweeping in.One-shot told in alternating segments taking place in 31 ABY and 0 ABY. Non-ST compliant. (Happy, Kylo Ren-free future, etc.)





	February Words #8: Revolution

**Author's Note:**

> Part 8 of my fic challenge! After I did Luke and Leia's birthday for #2, one of my lovely readers suggested trying Han's, so.... here we are! I had to make the fairly difficult choice of whether to continue to be canon-compliant past the birth of Ben or so... and I basically decided not to, for this story. This is pretty much a happy, fluffy future for our OT3. :)
> 
> As always, all feedback is welcome. I also have a couple of specific questions for readers of this series, if you don't mind... see comments at the end!

#8 - Revolution

 

revolution (noun) - a procedure or course, as if in a circuit, back to a starting point.

***

~31 ABY~

The house was empty.

Han wasn't really sure why that surprised or disappointed him. It wasn't like Luke or Leia had said they would be here. Han had told them when he'd be home--or at least, he thought he had. And they'd probably told him where they would be too. Sometimes his memory wasn't quite what it had been.

But, anyway, they weren’t here.

"Hey, Chewie!" Han turned and called behind him, but the ramp on the  _ Falcon _ was already raised. She was more Chewie's ship now than Han's, anyway. Sure, Han could go up there, drag Chewie down to the house for a drink, a game of Sabaac for old times' sake… but the more he thought about it, the less appealing any of that started to sound.

Old times. Han shook his head. Sixty was too young to be old.

But here he was, letting himself into an empty house, taking a bottle of whiskey from the shelf and then putting it back cause some medical droid had told him not to overdo it. Here he was, picking up this holo someone had taken of that medal ceremony back on Yavin, and wondering how he'd ever been that young.

Here he was. Here for more than thirty years now. Well, not  _ here  _ here. But here, with Luke and Leia. Somehow.

Just because the war was over didn't mean they were out of danger. They'd all had their scares over the years. Ship malfunctions. Jedi training accidents. Good old fashioned alien viruses. They'd pulled through, somehow. Maybe not always in exactly one piece, but still here.

Still. Sixty. Even if it probably wasn't his real birthday. Even if Luke had just picked a random date because  _ You can't just not have a birthday, Han _ . It felt... significant, somehow.

Han didn’t want to think about it, but he did, sometimes. About how long they had to go.

It was decades, probably. Sixty wasn’t that old, right? But it still kind of felt sometimes like they were fading out, that a strange new world was creeping in.

 

***

~0 ABY~

Han had forgotten how much he hated ceremonies.

_ It’ll be over in a couple of minutes, _ Leia told him. Except he didn’t call her Leia yet, back then. The Princess, then, with her cute little smile that tried hard to be condescending but felt… equal, almost, even though the rest of the universe said they should have been anything but.

The medal thing had been enough. And then the meeting with a bunch of other Alliance generals. And then the thing where Luke got promoted or whatever, even though he'd been there for like half a week and the kid couldn't even command his own appetite.

Han wasn't even sure what this thing was for. Some strategic something-or-other with some disgruntled Core world that the Princess could have handled on her own. But he and Luke were  _ heroes _ now, and that apparently meant they were needed at boring diplomatic functions more than the actual flying and shooting and saving people that had made them heroes in the first place.

"It'll be fun," Luke said, in this cheery voice that was so grating and sexy at the same time to Han, because it wasn't fake or forced at all. The kid actually thought it would be fun.

"It won't be fun," Han grumbled as he pulled on yet another vest, buttoned up another shirt--put on his own damn pants, because he wasn't about to wear anything without Corellian bloodstripes--and ran his fingers through his hair. "It'll be another eighty-five hours of listening to some old general drone on about a battle that happened before either of us was born."

Luke smiled, or sighed, or did something that was kind of a combination. "Be nice, Han," he scolded. "That'll be us someday."

The party was, as Han expected, extremely long and extremely boring. He remembered how Leia had her hair that night, all looped around in these intertwining braids that she'd tell him, years later, were easier to do on her own, without a handmaid. She kept coming over, hooking her elbow through his, and dragging him to some diplomat or other.

"I'd like to introduce Han Solo," she said. And it was weird the way she said his name, like it was something these people ought to know.

Eventually, though, he'd met everyone there, and they were all just standing around with their drinks and reminiscing about things that Han didn't really care about. He found Luke, deep in conversation with some alien from an species even Han had never seen. "Excuse me," he stepped between them. "Can I borrow Ensign Skywalker for a second?"

And Luke "It'll be fun" Skywalker sighed in relief.

"What'd I tell you, kid?" Han said, maybe too loudly, as he led Luke out the door to an external landing pad. There weren't any ships here tonight; the air was empty. It was quiet in a way it never was.

Luke didn't say anything for a long time. He just stood there, looking up at the stars or out at the jungle. Whichever. Poor kid. From a planet like Tatooine, anything probably seemed like a breathtaking landscape.

"Hey, Han?" he said, eventually, never taking his eyes from the sky. "You wanna know something funny? Me and Leia, we have the same birthday."

Leia. So there really was something between them. "That's... that's crazy, Luke. Yeah."

"I was just... thinking about it," Luke went on. "How we ought to do something for her. Since... you know..." He looked down at his feet.

_ You too, kid _ , Han thought. But he didn't--couldn't--say it aloud.

"She'll be all right," he said. "Just look at all those people who love her."

"Yeah." Luke rocked back and forth on his feet. "But they're still not her family, you know? Hey--" and he turned around, smiling. "How about you, Han? When's yours."

"I dunno."

There was no great story behind that. Han wasn't even completely sure how old he was.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

_ Oh, great.  _ Now Luke was beside him, with that sad, sappy look in his eyes.

"I mean I don't know, kid. Not all of us grew up with parents."

He caught the slip just as soon as he'd said it.

"Sorry. Luke. You know what I mean."

"Yeah." Luke nodded. "It's okay."

But his voice went distant, and he looked back toward the party, and said. "Wait here a second, okay?"

 

***

~31 ABY~

Chewie roared, and Han almost rolled out his bunk.

Except he wasn't on the Falcon, and he wasn't on Yavin, and all of his joints were thirty-some years older than they had been.

"All right, all right," he grumbled. "I'm up. Yeah, yeah. What do you mean, we've got a mission?"

Han dressed as quickly as he could, in the same old jacket he'd been wearing for maybe twenty years. Same old bloodstripes. Same old blaster. Fading out, maybe, but always in style.

"Okay, okay." Chewie was already sitting in the pilot's seat. "What's the mission? Coordinates?"

Chewie just cooed. He'd already programmed them in.

That shouldn't have seemed like a challenge. Or an insult. Chewie was first mate, just doing his job. But for whatever reason, it rubbed Han the wrong way. He was being phased out, by his very own ship. For a Wookiee who was way older than sixty.

"Thanks, buddy," he said, fighting to keep his tone casual. "I guess I'll just... I'll play co-pilot today."

***

~0 ABY~

Han wasn't sure if he was supposed to just wait out here or not.  _ Five more minutes _ , he told himself, but he wasn't wearing a chrono. Luke would just have to hope that "a second" was sometime before Han gave up and went to bed.

For the first time in maybe a couple of years, Han really looked up at the stars. Damn kid. Damn Luke, making him remember what this felt like, to think he could be more than what he was.

Yeah, he'd done the right thing, coming back to blast that Death Star. But that didn't end his debt to Jabba, and it didn't make everything right. Empire was still out there--now, probably, targeting the  _ Falcon _ specifically. He needed to get off this rock and make things right.

From the far side of the complex, a ship took off.  One of the diplomats maybe, heading home. This wouldn't be any of their home for much longer. The Empire knew where they were, and this was borrowed time, until they summoned the resources to flush them out.  _ Don't get too attached, Solo _ , he told himself, at just about the same like Luke's voice rang out: "Han!"

Leia was with him, and she echoed his name, "Han! What are you doing out here alone?"

"You know me and parties..." he began, but Luke cut him off.

"You've got to hear this. Han doesn't even know when his own birthday is!"

Luke was laughing at him.

Han tried to fake-smile, but it ended up a grimace. "Okay. Whatever. Forget it."

"No, wait." Luke grabbed his arm, and there was something in his face, in those earnest, open eyes, that made Han stay. "Don't you see?" he asked Leia. "This is so exciting!"

Han raised an eyebrow. "What is?"

Luke looped his arm through Leia's. What had the kid been drinking, anyway?

"You can't just not have a birthday, Han! It means we can celebrate whenever we want to!" Only Luke could make this sound like a good idea. "Tomorrow," he went on. "Okay? Han's birthday's tomorrow."

Leia looked from Luke to Han and back. "Tomorrow?" She was trying not to laugh.

But then she said: "That... sounds fun. Okay."

***

~31 ABY~

The  _ Falcon _ shuddered out of hyperspace while Han was down in the smuggling compartments, trying to clear out as much of the junk as he could for whatever mission they'd been tapped for.  He really needed to think about retiring, he told himself, for what was probably the thousandth or so time.

Luke was so much happier now that he wasn't really teaching. Lando, too, now that he'd given up the whole businessman thing and retired to a far corner of the Rim.

"Want to tell me why we're still doing this, Chewie?" Han shouted, although he knew Chewie wouldn't hear him in here.

Half of him wanted to go up to the cockpit. The other half just wanted to sit here. It wasn't that he resented Chewie, really... but why the hell wouldn't whoever had wanted Han for whatever this was contact  _ him _ ?

He felt the ship enter atmosphere, felt Chewie keep her even down to the ground. Wherever they were, at least the weather seemed decent.

"Let's get this over with," Han muttered to himself.

He would have liked to say he vaulted fluidly out of the chambers. But it was more the labored climb of a man who was way too old to be doing this, after all.

He got to the hatch just as Chewie was lowering it. Whatever kind of world this was, Han didn't care. He'd take the cargo, get it out of here... and then maybe just hand his his resignation. They didn't need the money or the glory, any more. And besides, he was sixty. Even if, in his case, that was literally just a number. Maybe it was time to just... peacefully fade away.

The hatch rattled downward on century-old hinges. And revealed a green--and the remains of a base--that Han had definitely seen before.

***

~31 and 0 ABY~

It wasn't much of a party, really, just a table and a couple of borrowed banners, and Luke and Leia, out under the open sky.

Leia had her hair up, the sun making it bronze and silver--some precious metal anyway, and when she wrapped Han in a hug she smelled like flowers from some distant, hidden world. "We didn't think you'd come," she said.

"Why wouldn't I?" Han tried to act offended. But she was right. He'd been all over the place, anyway, never sure if he wanted to stay or go. "I'm the one who should be accusing you of disappearing, anyway. Where'd you go last night?"

Leia gave Luke a little grin. "A secret mission."

"Correllian whiskey." Luke, in his dress uniform, with that damn medal still hanging 'round his neck, produced a bottle from Han's birth year from under the table. "Cost me just about everything I own," he said, but it wasn't a complaint. "And you better not tell me you had too much last night to enjoy it."

"No such thing." Han took the bottle, and whistled in amazement. "Where'd you get this? It's practically an antique."

Leia shook her head, and gave him a sad little smile. "You're not that old, Han. Not yet."

She poured the whiskey into cloudy cups that Chewie brought from the  _ Falcon _ , and made Chewie take a cup as well.

"A toast, then," she said. "To Han. Happy Birthday."

"Happy Birthday," Luke echoed.

Han hadn't really thought that getting older was something to celebrate. But here, with his family, maybe it was.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> This is the EIGHTH story I've written in this series so far, and for anyone who doesn't mind weighing in, a couple of questions. (Anonymous comments are accepted, Tumblr messages also fine: https://staringatthetwinsuns.tumblr.com/)
> 
> 1\. Up until now I've been trying to keep to the same continuity (other than a few tiny details I messed up!)... would you like to see this particular future explored in more detail, or to see other possibilities explored? (Or both, or either?)
> 
> 2\. How do you feel about "darker" stories? (Want, don't want... like, but not for this prompt series?)
> 
> ....only kind of asking because this is now the THIRD celebration I've written (birthdays and Life Day), and.... I'm thinking that this is starting to get a little repetitive. I tried to branch out into a different time period and a different format today, but... still feels repetitive. Any thoughts?
> 
> ....and please don't feel like you HAVE to comment or anything. I appreciate all of my readers, either way! THANK YOU!!!


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